Were blacks involved in the death of Emmett Till?
on July 31st, 2005 at 1:47 am
I never heard anything about this until I read the story in my paper (LA Times) recently.
Johnny B. Thomas grew up with the story of Emmett Till. It filtered down to children here like a dark fable, one that ended with a black boy wrapped in barbed wire at the bottom of a river.
Thomas didn’t see himself as part of that story. Then, when he was 11 or 12, someone told him the old rumor about his father, Henry Lee Loggins.
The summer of 1955, when the 14-year-old Till was murdered for reportedly whistling at a white woman, was also the summer Loggins disappeared. Loggins worked for J.W. Milam, one of the white men who confessed to killing Till. People here have long believed Loggins was present at the crime and spirited out of town so he could not testify at Milam’s murder trial. (more—may need to register…)
